Vote yes on conservative culture rep

Prior to a TCU senate meeting last month, Rafi Goldberg had never considered that a "political minority may be suffering from the lack of a voice on the Senate, or that conservatives may be the targets of hate crimes," as a Viewpoint yesterday indicated. In doing so, the piece showed the campus exactly why it needs a conservative culture representative. Fortunately for Rafi and the rest of Tufts, the staff of The Primary Source is keenly attuned to the problems facing conservative students and is willing to work through student government to address those problems.

A referendum on today's ballot calls for the creation of a conservative culture rep to the TCU senate. Clearly conservatives are a distinct minority here at Tufts, and consequently, the concerns of our community are not adequately represented by the TCU senate. But why does Tufts need a conservative culture rep, and why should you vote yes on this referendum?

In the past year alone, conservative students have been harassed and physically assaulted, their media stolen and vandalized. Hate messages have been scrawled on bathroom walls and dorm whiteboards, and individuals have been verbally berated and ridiculed for wearing clothing that identified them as conservatives. Has the Senate passed a resolution asking for dialogue with conservatives to be free from harassment? No. Has the administration allocated increased resources to promote understanding of conservatives? No. Has the Bias Response Team taken the time to consider these problems with the same seriousness they show other minorities? No.

The agenda of the conservative culture rep is no mystery, in many ways it is the same as every other culture representative. In addition to student safety and tolerance, a conservative representative would work on issues of faculty diversity, departmental funding, legal resources, and curricular diversification. For example, in an extensive study only two percent of Tufts' faculty was found to be registered Republicans, a clear indication that the conservative ideology is sorely underrepresented. Within the curricula, conservatives note that Tufts' "world civilizations" requirement is distinctly anti-Western civilization, is Western civilization not a "world" civilization that should count for this requirement?

In addition, the voice of the conservative minority on campus also agrees with TTLGBC rep Kelly Sanborn and sophomore senator Chike Aguh in believing that the present culture rep system is less than ideal. The culture rep system cannot, however, properly reform itself without the input of the one culture on campus that has taken upon itself the task of naming the flaws themselves.

Conservatives do believe that the current culture rep system is not perfect, but we hope to work with the other culture reps to create a system that all Tufts students can agree on. Too many times on this campus, students have been forced to fight against each other politically_ let's begin to work together. By being an active member of the senate and the Culture, Ethnicity, Community Affairs (CECA) committee, a conservative culture rep could be the catalyst for change that students of all ideologies and backgrounds would agree on.

A culture rep is nothing more than an elected spokesperson for a group of people. Just as other minorities campaigned for a rep in the past, so too do conservatives feel that our voice is not being heard on the TCU senate. We seek only to add our voice to the dialogue that is student government, in order to foster discussion about what is best for all of Tufts University.

The intention of creating a conservative culture rep is to cooperate with the current system and to increase productivity, not, asGoldberg's viewpoint alleges, "to stifle the development of Senate initiatives, preventing other members of the Senate from serving the people who elected them." On the contrary, we, the conservative community at Tufts, would like very much for the senators to serve the students as best they can. They can only do this if they understand fully the concerns facing these same students. Voting "yes" for the conservative culture rep can only aid them in their doing their jobs efficiently.



Rob Lichter, a senior, is the News Editor of The Primary Source and vice president of the Tufts Republicans.